Terrorists have become more violent and lethal over the past four decades because many are now motivated by religious absolutism and not by political objectives, according to Brian Jenkins. Now a senior adviser to the President of RAND Corporation, Jenkins looked back over his 43 years of studying terrorism at a dinner with LAWAC on Thursday, September 25 with the benefit of chastened hindsight. He admitted he missed some emerging trends, including the importance of the Internet to terrorist networks, but above all he cautioned Americans from overreacting to a terrorist threat that, in the years following 9/11, have killed only a handful of Americans in this country every year.